[IndyTiger]

[MikelTackNailer]

While Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley owned the concept they treated Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss (who wrote and sang "Beth") as disposable employees who were lucky to get what money Gene let them have. Both Ace and Peter would either quit or be fired, always to be hired back when replacements wouldn't cut it for the endless "retirement tours" the original two never tired of doing.

Frehley and Criss did well despite the mistreatment and purposely being unacknowledged, earning fortunes anyway due to the massive amount of money KISS earned over the years as an entity, enterprise and cultural phenomenon. The four solo album project was meant to prove that the founders' popularity far outstripped that of "the help" - and it hilariously blew up in Simmons' and Stanley's faces.

Ace was never the greatest guitarist nor known for innovation like Clapton or Page, but he was a trooper who dutifully played thousands of shows in uncomfortable make-up and costumes; often risking injury due to pyrotechnics, stunts and the vices that plague rock stardom. Thank you, sir.

If you only know his work from his time with KISS please listen to this instrumental, "Fractured Mirror", from that solo album.
(Truly great astronomy photographs in the video for you cosmological compatriots.)